


photographs scattered across the kitchen floor

by ToxicPineapple



Series: Writing Weeks I Didn't Finish [1]
Category: Super Dangan Ronpa 2
Genre: Angst, Bittersweet, Car Accidents, Character Death, F/F, Hurt/No Comfort, I'm sorry ;w;, Mahiyoko Week, Mahiyoko Week 2020, Memories, Mourning, Past Character Death, Reminiscing, Uh...
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-29
Updated: 2020-07-29
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:40:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25596688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ToxicPineapple/pseuds/ToxicPineapple
Summary: hiyoko hasn’t been able to get to those photos, because she can’t bear to even put her hand on the doorknob. the pictures that cover the kitchen tiles are all from that photo album mahiru gifted to hiyoko last christmas. two months ago hiyoko had been leafing through it, trying not to cry, and she saw that one phtograph, and then she…well, hajime walking in and stopping her from destroying the thing with a kitchen knife hadn’t been necessary, really. hiyoko would never have been able to harm that picture, not when it’s the last thing she really has of mahiru, the only real thing that matters among the clothes and the furniture and the other pictures. hiyoko can’t sleep in that bedroom anymore, she’s been taking the guest room while hajime’s been sleeping on the couch. that photo is all that she can bring herself to look at.---two months after koizumi mahiru has gone, hiyoko stagnates.---Mahiyoko week day four: Music/Photograph
Relationships: Koizumi Mahiru/Saionji Hiyoko
Series: Writing Weeks I Didn't Finish [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2022718
Comments: 21
Kudos: 31





	photographs scattered across the kitchen floor

**Author's Note:**

> written for mahiyoko week day four! the prompt i used was photograph.

there’s this photograph that mahiru took.

mahiru took a lot of photographs, actually. they’re all still scattered around the kitchen floor, the way they have been for the past two months. hiyoko can’t get up to get one of those stupid orange juice popsicles hajime has been making for her without seeing them. she’d thrown them there in an angry, destructive rage, desperate for some kind of catharsis, some kind of  _ revenge-- _

\--because they were all she had to ruin, those photographs. she couldn’t even think about going after anything else.

mahiru’s closet is still full of those checked shirts and dresses she used to wear, the olive green jackets and beige high waisted pants. her pretty golden locket, the one that matches the one around hiyoko’s neck, still rests on her dresser, gathering dust because hiyoko can’t stand to look at it anymore. can’t stand to go in that room at all, because she knows what she’ll see if she does; mahiru’s pretty green sheets that smell like lemon shampoo, the beanbag chairs that they used to cuddle in, the curtains, still a bit torn up from the cat they had four years ago.

but mainly all the photos in  _ there,  _ the ones of hiyoko, the ones that made her look beautiful in a way that mirrors never could. there are photos of hiyoko at the beach, at the park, dancing on stage. photos of her standing on the roof of their high school, and laughing so hard she could barely breathe at a sleepover they had back in college.

hiyoko hasn’t been able to get to those photos, because she can’t bear to even put her hand on the doorknob. the pictures that cover the kitchen tiles are all from that photo album mahiru gifted to hiyoko last christmas. two months ago hiyoko had been leafing through it, trying not to cry, and she saw that one phtograph, and then she…

well, hajime walking in and stopping her from destroying the thing with a kitchen knife hadn’t been necessary, really. hiyoko would never have been able to harm that picture, not when it’s the last thing she really has of mahiru, the only real thing that matters among the clothes and the furniture and the other pictures. hiyoko can’t sleep in that bedroom anymore, she’s been taking the guest room while hajime’s been sleeping on the couch. that photo is all that she can bring herself to look at.

mahiru never took pictures of herself, is the thing. it isn’t that she was camera shy, or anything, or even claimed not to be photogenic. it was just a personal preference.

_ “well, i see myself in the mirror every day!”  _ mahiru had said, when hiyoko asked. she laughed a little, and tilted her head. (hiyoko was starting to forget what that laugh sounded like.)  _ “i don’t need the photos to remind me of me, y’know? i want to capture the smiles of the people around me. that’s what feels most genuine. i’m not really capturing how i’m feeling if i’m smiling for the camera.” _

at the time hiyoko had called her a weirdo, mainly for taking so many candid shots of other people; she never did see the appeal of taking that kind of picture and running the risk of getting some grosso picking their nose.

but she kind of gets it now, because there’s this one photograph. just this one. the only one hiyoko can bear to see,

because it’s of mahiru.

it’s not a candid shot-- because like mahiru said she can’t very well take a candid shot of herself-- but there’s an awkward, sincere smile on mahiru’s face, and her green eyes are crinkly at the corners, and her tongue is poking out from between her teeth. her cheeks are slightly flushed and she’s peeking at the camera out of the corner of her eye. it’s the sort of flustered expression mahiru rarely pulled. not necessarily because she was the epitome of composure or anything, she just… didn’t blush often. or if she ever did, hiyoko was usually blushing so much that it really didn’t matter. she didn’t notice.

here, though, in this picture, the sun is so bright it illuminates mahiru’s every freckle, and every tinted part of her pale features. it even catches the slight pink in the tips of her ears, and her dimples when she smiles. it captures everything, in that way that mahiru’s photographs always have. looking at that photo is like mahiru being alive again, standing in front of her, smiling, her cheeks slightly flushed.

it’s… 

hard to reconcile that photo of her, so bursting with life, with the way that mahiru looked when hiyoko finally got to the scene of the car crash.

her green eyes were half-open and glossy, and her body was all contorted, and there was blood  _ everywhere,  _ but not in her cheeks. her face was pallid, actually, and slightly grey, in that way only ever dead bodies are. hiyoko doesn’t remember very much from that day, only that she screamed and fought and got sedated because she kept trying to attack the authorities and get to her girlfriend. it doesn’t matter. whether or not hiyoko remembers every excrutiating detail, it doesn’t change the fact that--

\--that, well,

that mahiru is dead, and no pretty photograph of her will ever change that. and their old bedroom is all covered in dust because hiyoko hasn’t been inside of it in months, and hajime has been staying with her to try to keep her alive because without him she might’ve burned the house down by now,

and there are photographs, all these photographs, scattered across the kitchen floor.

…

but there’s this photograph that mahiru took, of herself, because hiyoko asked her to, and then she gave it to her on christmas last year, and, well.

it’s not her girlfriend back, but it’s a memory. one that hiyoko can comfort herself with, through tears, and over those stupid orange juice popsicles that hajime keeps on freezing for her.

she just wishes there was a pretty redhead around for her to share them with.

**Author's Note:**

> i love you maggie <333 sorry


End file.
